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Full series: The Billion-Dollar Buy

Just two years later, nearly $9 million has been spent on the race for the conservative 7th District and the 733,500 residents represented by McIntyre in the southeastern corner of North Carolina.

GOP-allied super PACs are spending more on the airwaves than both candidates combined, and you can’t turn on the TV without seeing their ads linking Blue Dog Democrat McIntyre to President Barack Obama or House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. The Koch brothers-backed nonprofit Americans for Prosperity has been spending big to mobilize conservative voters here with bus tour rallies, phone banks and door knocking.

This is the new normal in congressional politics, where money, power and control have shifted away from party committees and candidates to deep-pocketed outside groups that — thanks to Citizens United and other recent court decisions — aren’t restricted by contribution limits.

Benefiting from the outside cash is McIntyre’s GOP challenger David Rouzer, a state lawmaker who has been far outraised by McIntyre and who, on his own, would lack the resources to compete vigorously across the sprawling district.

“It’s turned what otherwise would be a slam-dunk win for McIntyre against a very, very weak opponent into a hotly contested race,” said McIntyre’s main strategist David Heller.

To stay relevant in the new landscape, congressional candidates and their party committees are trying to raise more cash from larger donors, including special interest political action committees, and adjusting their spending strategies to complement the super PACs and nonprofits, with which they are legally barred from coordinating.

With those groups anxious to prove to billionaire backers that their record donations weren’t wasted, House races have increasingly emerged as a platform upon which the groups are jockeying to show tangible results. It’s simply far more expensive — and harder to claim credit — playing on a presidential battlefield anchored by expensive media markets than it is to try to swing House races in backwater media markets where a couple million bucks can lift a challenger who might otherwise have no chance.

Which leads directly to North Carolina.

McIntyre was considered especially vulnerable after the district was redrawn in the wake of the 2010 Census to include many more Republicans. It’s now the second most GOP-leaning district represented by a Democrat (the first, a Utah district represented by fellow Blue Dog Jim Matheson, has also seen a deluge of outside spending). Polling in McIntyre’s race is all over the map, with a conservative group last week putting Rouzer up six percentage points and private polling shared with POLITICO showing McIntyre with a lead just beyond the margin of error.

The NY, NJ, Long Island, Staten Island area is a disaster zone from the hurricane. Their biggest problem right now: A lack of electricity from downed power lines. MILLIONS of people are currently in the cold, and it's only going to get worse from this point forward as the weather drops. These people are cold, hungry and exhausted.

A few days back, volunteer electrical workers from Alabama (God bless them!) were sent HOME by union goon electrical workers because the Alabama crews were NOT unionized! Now they've demanded that Florida electrical workers pay their union dues before they'll reconnect power in Long Island!!

You can get more of this thuggish and depraved GOONION behavior, just vote for Obama! That's your IBEW union thugs!

Unions are a group of AMERICAN workers. Corporations may or may not be controled by Americans. Unions made this country great. The Democrats are not perfect but the Republican organization is very dangerous not only to the United States but to the whole world. The problem is not big government it is bad government. ( We ) are supposed to be the government. We the people, not the corporations, not the banks.

Republicans still trying voter suppression Why would a judge have to extend voting, what's wrong with Florida's piece-of-shyte Gov Rick Scott a one and done bought his office governor. This man doesn't care what he does, he's rich beyond means and he knows there is no second term for him, so he is open to burning Florida down if need be.

ORLANDO, Fla. — A judge extended early voting hours in one Florida county on Sunday after the state Democratic Party sued in an effort to give people more time at the polls.

Some voters had faced waits several hours long on Saturday, the last scheduled day of early voting. The judge ruled on a lawsuit filed late Saturday in Orange County after an early voting site was shut down for several hours. The Winter Park library was evacuated when a suspicious package – a cooler – was found outside. It was later detonated by a local bomb squad. Florida extends voting

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elephants and Asses Are conning the Masses